


offscript

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [33]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once they’re playing the montage of his season, David’s breath is coming short. He’s never had stage fright that he’s known of — he plays in front of 20,000 people on a regular basis — but this feels different, strange.</p>
<p>He walks up once the montage is done and the applause starts, tries to keep his steps even. He’s rehearsed the names of everyone he needed to mention, wrote Kiro’s revision down in case he forgot any of it, but for the first few moments, blinded by the lights so he can’t see a crowd populated by his colleagues, he’s not sure what to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	offscript

The morning of the Awards, David’s mother arrives in Las Vegas, calls him from the airport. “Would you have time for lunch before the Awards?” she asks. “I don’t suppose they’re feeding us.”

“I have to be there early,” David says, which isn’t untrue. He’s got some media and carpet stuff to do, something Dave’s flown in to personally oversee, like he doesn’t trust David to behave himself, which is ridiculous. Or maybe because David mentioned he was taking Kiro and Dave misinterpreted the comment, wouldn’t listen when David tried to clarify things, and is now there to make sure David doesn’t do anything foolish. David vaguely regrets that he told Dave at all, but he didn’t want him misinterpreting Kiro’s presence, assuming he was a date. Obviously he didn’t manage to avoid that interpretation, and now he’ll have Dave over his shoulder all night. He hopes Dave manages to stop watching him long enough to take advantage of some networking, because it’s a great opportunity for Dave to do so, but he knows better than to say that aloud, for fear that would only make Dave more suspicious. 

David doesn’t have the time to go out for lunch, regardless of when he needs to arrive to the Awards. Kiro, who got in the night before, offered to make David’s speech, in his words ‘less bad’, and David would be offended if he wasn’t so grateful for the help, since right now the speech consists of the names of the people he needs to thank and little else.

Kiro shows up to David’s hotel room just before lunch time with a suit bag slung over his shoulder. “First we check we don’t clash,” Kiro says. If they did it’d probably be a little late to fix it, but David’s suit is grey and Kiro’s is black, so David thinks they’re safe.

“You pick which tie,” Kiro says, spreading the choices out on David’s bed.

“Is that a penguin tie?” David asks, appalled.

“No penguin?” Kiro asks. “I am Penguin!”

“The striped one,” David says. “Please.”

“Who am I meeting?” Kiro asks, obediently draping the striped tie over his suit collar. “Mom and dad?”

David’s father called him in May, not long after the Islanders were knocked out, asking for two seats to the Awards. 

“I’d have to ask,” David said, “they only have a limited amount.”

He forgot to ask, in the end, and when his father called a week later, asking if the seats were available, David expressed disappointment that they were, in fact, all taken. “Sorry,” David said. “If you’d called in April—”

“Of course,” his father said. “Well, good luck, Dave.”

David found, after, he didn’t feel any guilt about the lie, and was a little surprised.

“Just my mother,” David says. “And my agent, I guess.”

He feels awkward even mentioning it, but it’d probably be more awkward if Dave treated Kiro strangely without a clear reason behind it. “He uh — he thinks you’re my date. I tried to tell him you aren’t, but he might be a little weird.”

“I am your date!” Kiro says. “Your agent knows?”

“Yeah,” David says. “That doesn’t mean you should talk to him about it or anything,” he adds, hasty.

“Don’t worry,” Kiro says. “Show me your bad speech. And order me room service, I am starving and this will probably take long time.”

David orders them both some lunch while Kiro reads over David’s notes.

“This is terrible,” Kiro says, when David hangs up the phone.

“Thank you,” David says. 

“You are getting better at sarcasm,” Kiro says.

“Thank you,” David repeats in the same tone, and Kiro laughs, holds out his fist, which David bumps after a moment.

“This has no personality,” Kiro says. “You need to make it funny. Right now it is boring.”

“I don’t know how to make it funny,” David admits.

“Ah,” Kiro says. “But that is why you have me. I am very funny. I even make serious Davidson Chapman laugh.”

David smiles reluctantly. “Anything you can do, that’d be good,” he says.

“All these Russians you thank in row,” Kiro says. “Should make Russian mob joke or something.”

“No,” David says. “That’s offensive.”

Kiro rolls his eyes. “Please tell Russian what is offensive to Russians, he needs telling.”

“I’m not joking about the mob,” David says.

“You are no fun,” Kiro sighs. “‘Anything you can do’, and you are ignoring my advice!”

“No mob jokes,” David says flatly.

“Okay,” Kiro says. “You forgot Slava’s last name.”

“I—I can’t pronounce it right,” David admits.

Kiro tries to coach him through the pronunciation of Vladislav’s surname, but when David’s sixth attempt has Kiro pressing his lips together and very cautiously saying, “better,” David gives up, because it’s clear he isn’t going to master it by tonight.

“If players know his last name they’ll know who to go to for training,” David says. 

“Yes,” Kiro says. “Hide name to keep Slava secret.”

“Right,” David says.

“Good idea,” Kiro says. “Very smart.” 

Dave comes by when they’re working through the speech to talk about some of the logistics about the reporters, though David’s more than used to that aspect of it, if not the red carpet hysteria. Kiro climbs off David’s bed to shake his hand, introduce himself, and David wonders how that looks, but Dave’s nothing but polite to Kiro. He apparently knows Kiro’s agent, which David is a little surprised by but probably shouldn’t be, and they talk about him for a few minutes while David hangs back, waiting, cautious, for Dave to say something to Kiro, but in the end he excuses himself without acting like Kiro is here as anything but David’s friend. Which is actually the case, but David knows Dave doesn’t think that.

“I have to meet Buffon for a drink before the show,” Dave says. “Guy’s name is one letter away from a clown in both English and French, and he’s earned it.”

“He’s an agent, right?” David asks.

“Boucher’s,” Dave says. “So I’m sure we’re going to have a very friendly disagreement about how much more the Art Ross is worth than the Rocket. You kids get ready, I hear you’re late and I’m killing you with my bare hands.”

“I’m never late,” David protests.

“You’re wearing a t-shirt right now,” Dave says. 

“We get ready,” Kiro pipes up.

“Good,” Dave says. “See you on the other side, don’t do anything that’ll stress me out.”

“I won’t,” David says.

“I think he approves of me as your date,” Kiro says, once Dave’s left.

“Don’t call yourself my date in front of reporters,” David says.

“They will just think I am joking,” Kiro says. “But I won’t,” he adds, before David can say anything.

“Okay,” David says. “Thank you.”

David’s staying at the same hotel the theatre’s located at, so they’d be in no hurry if there wasn’t a red carpet to walk. David also wouldn’t have to go outside, which is an unpleasant, arid heat. His grey suit is one of the lightest ones he owns, he knows Vegas summer heat from the Calder loss, but even so, he feels like he immediately starts sweating through it.

Kiro looks comfortable, but Kiro always seems to be comfortable. David envies him that. “I am ready for my close up,” Kiro says. “We hold hands?” He offers a hand, wiggling his fingers, and laughs when David elbows him in the side.

David’s sure the cameras don’t actually add any heat to the swelter, but it feels like it after they’ve had the relative relief of a drive around the block in an air conditioned limo so they can exit ‘in style’, whatever that’s supposed to mean. The red carpet feels like a gauntlet — every few steps he gets stopped. The entrance is within view, presumably cool, air conditioned, but first David has to sign autographs, talk to reporters.

“And with you is—” the first reporter to seem to notice Kiro says, after asking him how it feels to win the Art Ross. David knows Kiro isn’t really a high profile player, but even so, he’s a little offended the reporter doesn’t seem to recognise him.

“Kirill Volkov,” David says, “of the Pittsburgh Penguins.”

Kiro, half a step behind David, waves at the camera.

“I see,” the reporter says. “I didn’t know the Islanders and Penguins were on such friendly terms.”

Kiro leans over, hand on David’s shoulder, so he can reach the mic. “David is friends with all the Russians. Is like—”

“Don’t make a Russian mob joke,” David says quietly, hoping the mic doesn’t pick it up.

“Canadian Ambassador to Russia,” Kiro finishes. “David Chapman. And Art Ross winner too! Very talented guy.”

David feels himself going red.

“I here to keep him humble,” Kiro says. “Remember all the fourth liners dreaming of playing like Sniper Snapman.”

David has no idea how that nickname spread — Eisler was the only Isle who used it.

“Stop,” David says.

“See?” Kiro says. “Humble. My job is done!”

The reporter’s grinning. “How do you know each other?” she asks.

“Training,” David says, while Kiro says, “Russian mob.”

David elbows him and hopes it looks accidental.

*

“I told you no Russian mob jokes,” David says, once they finally make it inside.

“You did not say _I_ could not make the joke,” Kiro says.

“You suck,” David mutters, and ignores Kiro’s laughter.

They have seats close to the front — obviously David’s going to have to walk to the stage, so he appreciates that it isn’t going to be a long walk, since everyone’s going to be watching him when he does get up. David has the aisle seat, again for obvious reasons, and Kiro immediately steals the arm rest they share, makes himself comfortable. The red carpet took long enough that there isn’t much time to wait before the show starts, with a band that David vaguely recognises and doesn’t think is very good, and then some jokes from a celebrity who has nothing to do with hockey, which David finds a little strange.

One of the first trophies they award is the Rocket Richard, and Boucher takes his time making it to the stage, holds the trophy up critically.

“Well, it’s no Art Ross,” Boucher says, and the crowd laughs, a camera training itself on David like the operator had anticipated the remark. 

Kiro elbows him in the side. “Show sense of humour,” he hisses, and David obediently smiles.

“He should be happy with a Rocket Richard,” David mutters to Kiro, once Boucher’s leaving the stage.

“It is a _joke_ , David,” Kiro says. “People do not _mean_ jokes.”

“It was still really ungrateful,” David mumbles.

Kiro covers his mouth, shoulders shaking.

“Are you — are you okay?” David asks. “Are you—” Crying, he doesn’t finish, because a noise more akin to laughter than sobbing escapes Kiro’s mouth, and the woman beside Kiro frowns.

“Are you _laughing_?” David asks.

“Never change,” Kiro tells him, once he’s regained composure.

“Why do people keep saying that to me?” David asks.

“No idea,” Kiro says breezily, and refuses to answer the question properly, even when David frowns at him through the commercial break.

*

The Art Ross is earlier in the show than a lot of the other awards, probably because everyone already knows who won it. Even so, David’s tense, and tenser with every moment leading up to it. Kiro keeps giving him looks David thinks are supposed to calm him down, but they aren’t really working. Once they’re playing the montage of his season, David’s breath is coming short. He’s never had stage fright that he’s known of — he plays in front of 20,000 people on a regular basis — but this feels different, strange.

He walks up once the montage is done and the applause starts, tries to keep his steps even. He’s rehearsed the names of everyone he needed to mention, wrote Kiro’s revision down in case he forgot any of it, but for the first few moments, blinded by the lights so he can’t see a crowd populated by his colleagues, he’s not sure what to say.

“Uh,” he manages, after a second, which gets a round of laughter David thinks is amused, not cruel, though he can’t be sure.

“This wouldn’t be possible without a lot of people,” David says. “First, thanks to Oleg Kurmazov, who is the best leader and captain a player could have,” he says, then, “no offence,” an addition Kiro suggested considering the four captains in the audience, and everyone laughs the way Kiro said they would.

“To Kirill Volkov,” David says, because Kiro demanded that he went second, and he helped David write the speech, so he’s earned it. “Who wrote all the jokes,” David reads from the card. “So if I don’t seem very funny, blame the language barrier.”

David doesn’t remember approving that part of the speech, but it gets another laugh, and he continues, galvanized. 

“To Vladislav,” David says. After the failure of today there is no way David is saying his surname in front of his peers and a TV audience, some of whom would know how badly he was pronouncing it. And Vladislav himself, should he be watching, who’d probably laugh at him again. “Your training regimen is the reason this season was possible. I’m sorry for calling you a sadist.”

More laughter. Oleg’s the only one who has had the nerve to call Vladislav that to his face, but David and Kiro certainly mumbled it enough after hard days, and it’s better than evil, which is what Kiro wanted to go with.

“Uh,” David says again, caught, embarrassed by the verbal tic in front of that crowd, under all those lights, in front of a camera broadcasting it to everyone who cares. “To my teammates, of course. To my parents, for letting me play hockey. To Mary Anne Mercado, for going to all my games when I was a kid and always cheering me on. To Dave Summers, the best agent in the business. To the Remparts organization for taking a chance on me when everyone in the OHL said I was too small to play professionally, and the Islanders organization for giving me a chance to prove myself.”

“And to Jake Lourdes,” David says, doesn’t look down. It’s not in his notes, because he shouldn’t be saying it. “For always challenging me to be better. Thank you.”

He gets lead off by the elbow, feeling a little impressed with his own daring, a little appalled at the same time. Dazed, overall, still holding the trophy in his arms, cradled carefully.

“Were you saying, in your speech, that you are a better player than Jake Lourdes?” he’s asked, microphone back in his face before he’s been off the stage for even a minute. Sportsnet he thinks, but doesn’t look down at the mic to check. 

“What?” David asks. “No. I meant that competition has made me a better player than I would be otherwise.”

He doesn’t think that was what it sounded like. He hopes it wasn’t. He’d hate if that was the general consensus, if Jake thought this was David holding up the Art Ross in response to the draft, the Calder, brandishing it as a sign he’s won. That isn’t the way David meant it. David’s thought it before, but it isn’t a thought he’d share. Maybe once, years ago, he wouldn’t have been ashamed of thinking it, but he is now, and he’d never say it aloud.

When David gets backstage, gets a moment to breathe, he checks his phone. Jake’s sent him a text, _you make me better too_ , a sign he’s pulled back on the text speak for the occasion, and a single heart, restrained for him. 

Sportsnet didn’t understand what David meant, but he didn’t say it for the media. Jake seems to have understood, which is what matters. 

David shouldn’t have said it, and it wasn’t for anyone but Jake.


End file.
